


I Made A Friend

by Robertdoc



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), WandaVision (TV)
Genre: Awesome Peter Parker, Awesome Wanda Maximoff, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, Gen, Hurt Wanda Maximoff, Peter Parker Makes A Friend, Post Spider-Man: No Way Home, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Wanda Maximoff, Speculation, Wanda Maximoff & Peter Parker Friendship, Wanda Maximoff Makes A Friend, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, What-If, post wandavision
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:56:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29967411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Robertdoc/pseuds/Robertdoc
Summary: Thanks to so many factors, Spider-Man almost certainly won't be in "Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness" after his own multiverse adventure in "No Way Home" ends - and he won't get to join Dr. Strange and Wanda Maximoff/The Scarlet Witch in whatever multiverse adventure they're in.But what if he could?For that matter, what if he could be in a Multiverse of Madness where Wanda didn't threaten the entire multiverse just to get her kids back - at least not for the whole story? What if someone who knew Wanda's pain could talk her down in time - without any evil neighbor to stop it this time - and then help Wanda help Dr. Strange repair the multiverse and much more?What if there was a world of multiverse madness where Wanda got to make a friend, instead of merely being the villain/potential villain who threatens reality one more time? And what if Peter got to make a real magical friend who didn't betray him, helped him save all worlds and gave him extra courage to face his world again too?It may not happen on the big screen in this world. But in this section of the multiverse, it's a different story.
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff & Peter Parker, Wanda Maximoff & Stephen Strange
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is one big "What-if?" story where its not just WandaVision, but Spider-Man: No Way Home that leads into Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness - and where Spider-Man gets to join up with Wanda and Dr. Strange to save the multiverse before finally going back home.  
> But its really more of an excuse to imagine a Multiverse of Madness version where Wanda and Peter become friends, Wanda gets to do more and be more than a Darkhold possessed witch who may end reality just to get her kids back [aka WandaVision 2.0], and these two find some relief/found family in each other instead of just being flung towards their next round of endless, story demanding trauma.  
> And unlike all the other times I tried to just do that for Wanda these last several weeks, this one is in more than one chapter.

The multiverse is real. And it is vast. Vast enough that when it comes apart, there are millions of different scenarios for it, even then.

In one such scenario, it is preceded by a young boy with spider-powers getting hurdled through multiple versions of his life. But in this case, he escapes back to his own world and stays there, before ever encountering the witch who nearly breaks all worlds – or the wizard who then leads the way to put them back together.

Yet let us now go into a scenario where the boy isn’t so lucky.

Or perhaps is.

***************************************

Let us now imagine a world where Peter Parker is about to escape the multiverse, but doesn’t quite get there before it starts falling apart. A world where Dr. Stephen Strange finds the boy before the first cracks in the multiverse destroy him, and has no choice but to bring him along in order to stop Wanda Maximoff from forging more.

In this world, like most others, Wanda cripples reality from using a dark, all powerful book to try and get back what may or may not be her real children. In this world, like most others, it also unleashes evil forces and nightmare beings eager to take advantage of a shattered, blended universe.

In this world, like most others, it is the Sorcerer Supreme who has to stop her from making it worse. And in the vast majority of worlds, her refusal to give up the search for her children makes everything worse. Makes her a threat to be stopped. Pushes her over the edge after years of a pre-ordained path designed to make her far too dangerous to heal in a healthy way, recover from endless pain, or be anything but a quasi-villain at best.

But for once, let us live in a world where such outcomes aren’t pre-ordained, supposedly necessary and definitely lazy.

Let us live in a world where the battles between the Sorcerer Supreme and the Scarlet Witch tap out at just one. Thanks in large part to taking place in a world where there is a third party.

A third party who knows exactly what it means to face loss and tragedy, far earlier than he had any right to. Who was convinced it was all his fault, and that it meant he couldn’t let anything else he could stop happen again. Who took on the burden of the whole world around him, thought he found someone that could help him lift it – and then lost him just as tragically as he lost the last loved one.

And when he didn’t know the right way to handle it, it led to total disaster, a ruined name and a world he didn’t think he could stand being in anymore. Until he got to see all the other worlds – and all the other Peters – that gave him hope to try again.

In most worlds, he went back there and started again. In this one, however, he wound up caught in the middle of the two most powerful beings on Earth doing battle.

In this one, however, it was stopped without magic. Or any other narrative twist that kept these two beings fighting again and again. Or any other lazier narrative that kept the witch as an obsessed, Darkhold controlled being ready to let endless worlds die, just so two children she created could live again.

As it so happened, this was a different world. Where for all the magic Dr. Strange used to take the Scarlet Witch down, Peter Parker had far different magic that actually did the job.

The magic of words. Or rather, the magic of words from someone who understood her.

Years of struggling with loss, an unclear amount of time in the multiverse, and minutes of flinching as Dr. Strange described Wanda’s recent actions – with the Darkhold and Westview – as proof she was nothing but a threat to existence, strengthened that power in Peter.

Gave him enough of it to approach Wanda, knowing she could wipe him out with a thought even without the Darkhold’s influence. Yet instead of blasting her or accusing her like some wizards, he merely came to talk to her.

Instead, he told her how much he understood what she actually wanted to do – and that he knows there are worlds where he would have done it too. That was enough to make Wanda stop and vaguely remember the last time someone told her they might have done what she did to get back a loved one too.

With that little opening, Peter then went a step further. He told her that for all he lost, his time in the multiverse reminded him of all he still had – of everyone he still had. Something he unfortunately forgot during his last moments in a home world that otherwise hated him.

Then he told her how sorry he was that she didn’t have that. Not in a mocking way, but in a truly empathetic way.

That gave both Wanda and Dr. Strange pause. And convinced the sorcerer to actually Peter continue, instead of going through with his plan to capture a distracted Wanda while he had the chance.

When he did, Peter kept going, in recounting how everyone was probably too consumed with their own needs and losses after the Blip to be there for Wanda, or even think about her – himself included. Maybe if she had the support Peter still had and took for granted after all his losses, none of this – and none of Westview – would have happened.

So he said again that he was sorry she didn’t. And that he was sorry she lost Vision and her children. Something no one had actually told her before – at least not after she left the funeral for a hero that was actually mourned.

After Peter told her, her red eyes started flickering back to a regular color. Dr. Strange knew this was an even more perfect time to seize her – yet now didn’t trust himself to take this situation out of the young ward’s hands.

So he let Peter continue, as he said that although he wasn’t a Darkhold or some other voice in her head, he’d like to see if he could do any better than they have in getting her kids back. After all, she and a bunch of other powerful women helped him on a battlefield before – so now it’s only fair he do the same.

“I….” Wanda spoke in her most normal tone of voice since they found her. As her head began to clear, it actually let her look clearly at the masked hero in front of her…and remember where she’d seen him before. “I know you…”

“Well, not really,” Peter admitted, remembering she’d only noticed him twice in battle before – and threw cars at him the first time. But there’s no reason it shouldn’t be different this time.

“But let’s go ahead and change that,” he offered before removing his mask and offering his hand. “Hi, I’m Peter Parker.”

The slightest little sound of amusement – but not a mocking one – escaped Wanda’s lips, before her eyes flickered from red to green even faster. And the green was starting to show up more frequently.

“I…” Wanda started and stopped again, until her arm started extending. Seemingly in spite of itself. Peter kept his arm right where it was instead of pulling Wanda’s, fearing he’d do more harm than good in forcing her along.

As Peter’s words and the words of a much darker voice swirled around Wanda’s head, somehow she once again remembered the last time someone claimed to understand her pain…the only flesh and blood being who had tried to do so for years. Until just now…

The last time someone tried, she was led away by someone with far worse intentions. But if Wanda had listened to Monica for a few seconds longer, instead of letting a supposedly helpful neighbor take her away instead…so much would have been different. So much wouldn’t have happened then, to say nothing of whatever was happening now.

Then, she didn’t take the hand of someone who actually wanted to help her. Someone who should have known better than to help her, but still wanted to.

What if she took such a hand this time? What more could happen if she did?

That, not the uglier words and visions of the Darkhold, overpowered her as she finally took Peter’s hand.

“I’m…” she struggled to declare before remembering. “I’m _Wanda_ ….”

The red in Wanda’s eyes disappeared for good, at least for this moment. A moment long enough for the sorcerer to finally join back in. Not to seize Wanda, but to seize the book in her possession that had now lost its power over her.

But the loss of that power brought with it new knowledge. New to Wanda, anyway. Peter’s kinder words may have brought her back, yet harsher ones from the sorcerer kept her there.

They were far less harsh than the ones he said earlier. But it wasn’t the tone that brought her to her knees as much as the cold hard facts he shared of what she had let happen. And what she had unleashed upon a now fragile reality.

As familiar as it was for Wanda to realize she shattered whole worlds in her mistakes and pain, it was hardly any easier to let it sink in. Especially since this was likely the last time – because she and every being in every world would be destroyed from her mistakes and pain this time.

She would succeed where Vision’s first killer had failed.

“Miss Maximoff, you have unleased a multiverse of madness upon us all,” Dr. Strange made even more clear, before taking a slightly easier tone now that he had the chance to.

“However…you may also be the one that can help me repair it. If I don’t have to force you to do it, it would go a lot faster. And go a long way to help you repair more than just universes.”

“And?” Peter interjected. “There’s something else I guess I kinda promised her too…” The sorcerer recalled that promise, and brought himself the patience to make a modified one of his own.

“Miss Maximoff, what you did in hopes of getting back children you made with chaos magic…children who may not even be alive in some other world, like you think…it shouldn’t be rewarded,” he reminded her. “But…it would seem we both owe a debt to Mr. Parker now. And I can guess how he would like to call it in.”

“Therefore, if you help us fix the universe…then if there’s any way to give you back your children, without the use of dark magic...I promise I will find it for you. But for right now, the safety of every other completely real life and world has to come first.”

Instead of being grateful for being given yet another chance, Wanda muttered “I can’t fix it…I can never fix anything…”

“All right then. Come with us and we’ll put that theory to a final test,” the sorcerer took a more direct approach. “Unless you have some better way to spend your last days in reality.”

There were so many better ways. But none of them were available to Wanda now. None she deserved even if they were.

She should have known. But she never had before. Not in all those other times she got something she never deserved, caused untold suffering with it and/or destroyed it, barely repaired the damage and then started the cycle all over again having learned nothing

Having been spared to keep learning nothing, and being allowed to destroy more and more lives because of it. And now every life would end soon because of it.

But the cycle demanded she barely fix what she broke first. Then get let off the hook for it, before destroying the world with the next gift she didn’t deserve.

Or maybe since everything and everyone was in danger this time, it would be big enough to end the cycle. And end her.

Maybe that wouldn’t be the worst thing.

Which made it easier to believe the Darkhold made her hear her children, just to make all this happen. Made it easier to believe they weren’t really alive after all.

Made it easier to believe there was no reason fixing the universe was something she needed to survive.

So in that case…if the end would – should – be the same, what did it really matter if she succeeded or not? Who was left that really needed to be saved?

So she might as well tell the wizard there was no point in testing any theory. Especially one that was never meant to be disproven by her.

Tell him that and tell the…

The kid. The spider-kid. Stark’s spider-kid, now that she remembered a little better. The same spider-kid that woke her up to the latest nightmare she caused.

But did it by telling her things she’d never heard before. Not from someone other than Vision, her children, her former family, and maybe one or two Avengers. Maybe if there had been more than that at any other time, like the spider actually wished there had been…and seemed to mean it…

No. Too much had been done to wish for something that was never meant to be. Not for her. This was the final bit of proof that it wasn’t meant for her.

Not like It was for…

Though it wouldn’t be anymore if the universe ended.

Yes, there was that….

“I owe….Peter…a debt,” Wanda came to realize at the same time she said it. “I’ll test the theory for him. Not for you,” she addressed Strange at the same time she realized what she’d committed herself to.

Clean up her own mess one more time after all. Maybe with any luck, the last time. Whether it would be the last time because she really wouldn’t make another mess again later…or because she wouldn’t be able to make one again…she almost didn’t care if it was either one anymore.

As long as it wasn’t the last time because she’d fully committed to the darkness. She’d committed to it enough to nearly end all worlds today. And if they still had any hopes of being fixed, it wasn’t because of her.

It was because of him.

For that, the very least she could do was make sure at least one world was left for him to go back to. She could do that one last small, good thing before…whatever else happened to her later.

She couldn’t remember the last time she wanted to do that much – or little – for someone else other than Vision. Or any family she once had.

It gave her a little jolt of a feeling other than pain, grief, loss, guilt or hatred for what she was…for the first time since she couldn’t remember. Certainly the first time in a long time such a feeling had been caused by someone other than Vision. Or any family she once had.

Maybe not a feeling of love. Or obsession, or anything else that made her unleash so much evil these last few months. But it was…something rarer. Something…more soothing. Especially when she saw Peter smile at her without a trace of fear, hate, scolding resentment for her crimes or anything else that told her she was a monster.

She didn’t see any of that from the wizard right now. But as she said, she wasn’t still here for him.

“Okay…if one person’s what it takes for you to save trillions, I guess we’ll all have to take it,” Strange conceded, with far less enthusiasm than that from his first partner.

“Great! So where are we taking it?”


	2. Chapter 2

Dr. Strange brought the Darkhold with him so no one else would take it. But he was very strict in telling his cohorts that it’s spells would not be used or read again, under any circumstances. Of course, this was mainly a message for one of them.

It didn’t entirely sink in, though. Not when the trio was going around fixing whatever holes in the multiverse they could find, and doing a much slower job of it with Strange’s magic than they would have with the Darkhold’s. Given that every other sorcerer under Strange’s command was doing the same in every other corner of the world, Wanda could only imagine how slow their progress was too.

When one particular crack in the world was too big for just Strange to repair, and when the nightmare creatures of the multiverse made it even harder for him, Wanda finally took a faster route. Not by stealing the Darkhold back, but by reciting one of its spells from memory that did the exact trick they needed to escape and get the job done.

But to hear Strange rant to her about it later, it was like she shattered the multiverse all over again. To hear him snap that she’d done enough damage with that thing – and had done enough damage for multiple lifetimes as it was – it was as if she’d actually killed them all. Which he was probably sure she had already.

As tempting as it was to actually make that official for him, she figured poofing away and not killing him would give her a nice last word. This time, anyway. Next time might be different – and at this point, next time would probably be hours from now.

Instead, hours later the three of them were in an abandoned home, resting for the night. Or rather, Wanda was failing to rest, and finally gave up on it when she heard just how much the two males downstairs weren’t resting either.

*****************************************

“Look, it makes sense,” Peter insisted, not for the first time since him and the doctor started talking in the living room. “If you don’t want her to use Darkhold magic, and if she needs more than her regular magic to help you, then teach her some of yours. It’ll be a whole lot easier then!”

“Even if I was a teacher, that won’t work,” Strange insisted back. “The last thing she needs is even more power to misuse. And even leaving that out, she can’t be trusted. If you haven’t figured that out by now, that’s on you more than anyone.”

“But what if you’re wrong about her?”

“The amount of universes and timelines where I’m wrong about her…I can count them on one hand.”

“But it’s more than one finger, right?”

“Barely,” the sorcerer conceded.

“Then there’s still a chance! Maybe she just needs a chance too,” Peter thought he had him, until his opponent found a new surge of anger.

“She has had nothing but chances! After every terrorist attack, every reality she’s shattered, the countless billions she didn’t save by killing her boyfriend faster! Including you and me! Yet after all that, she’s been coddled and saved from being held accountable, truly accountable, every time! And look where we all are now because of it! Maybe doing the same thing over and over, for someone who doesn’t deserve a twelfth chance, is the one bit of insanity we can avoid here!”

“If someone had applied those standards to me, do you think I’d be here?!”

Strange clearly didn’t mean to let that slip up. He might have won the argument and shut Peter up if he hadn’t. Both of them knew that, and both of them knew Peter wouldn’t let up until Strange elaborated further. So he bit the bullet and took his own medicine.

“Look…I was the most powerful one in my field, just like she was. And just like her, I was let off the hook for all my less talented qualities, and my biggest mistakes, over and over, because I was too good to face real consequences. If I was held to a stricter, fairer standard…maybe I would have been different, even better…without needing a car crash, shattered hands or magic to be better instead. Maybe…other things that I lost wouldn’t have stayed lost after all…and maybe it’d be someone else here fixing the world instead of me.”

“So trust me, kid, I know what a lack of accountability costs. And now, because she still doesn’t, every life on every plain of existence may know it in their last moments too.”

Yet Peter ignored that last part, focusing on the part right before it instead.

“But that won’t happen, because you’re the one here fixing it. Because, even after all the mistakes you made, someone gave you another chance, didn’t they? You lost your hands, and someone ‘coddled’ you one last time to teach you magic…and that ‘coddling’ made you a hero, didn’t it? Because someone still thought you, despite all your mistakes, could still be a hero…you know, that sounds more like having faith in someone to me.”

“I never said it made sense.”

“Why doesn’t it? Look at you! And look at Mr. Stark! I know he made mistake after mistake, even after he turned good! But he kept getting another chance! And if he didn’t, you, me, Wanda, everyone would have been blipped forever! You said it yourself, there was only one timeline where we won….and we’re only in that timeline because Mr. Stark kept getting chances to be better! And he got so better he died saving us all!”

“So if that saved the world, why can’t it be the same for Wanda? Why is it fair that you, me, Mr. Stark, and all the other Avengers got ‘coddled’ and she can’t anymore? You’re just lucky I’m here asking you that and not MJ, so you might as well tell me! Why should we get to keep getting better and she can’t?!”

“Because our mistakes didn’t destroy all worlds! Even Stark’s didn’t! But her’s is about to, all because she couldn’t let go of some android! Some of us lost actual flesh and blood people for our mistakes…people some of us can’t just recreate out of our own minds! But we don’t let an entire town and multiverse pay for that! At least some of us here don’t!”

Once again, Strange thought he had Peter beaten, and that logic would finally prevail. To the point where letting something slip that he…shouldn’t have slipped out wouldn’t cost him. At least he didn’t let slip that Christine was still alive, unlike the android – though thanks to Maximoff, that was no longer a certainty.

But that wasn’t important now. The other real, important facts had finally worn down a childish argument, and that was that.

“She couldn’t let go of him because she killed him. Then watched him die again,” the childish argument continued anyway. “But…that only happened because…because…”

Peter’s face shot up in shock, terror, guilt and anger all in the span of a millisecond.

“Because of us. Because we didn’t stop Thanos from going there to kill him. Because we…” the anger won out. “Because _you_ gave him the Time Stone he used to kill Vision.”

Now that, Strange was in no mood to hear. Yet before he could lay down the law to that affect, it turned out Peter was in even less of a mood to hear that.

“You did that! You didn’t stop the Star-Lord guy when we could have got the gauntlet too! We didn’t stop anyone! Wanda had to kill Vision and go through all this because we could have stopped it, and we didn’t! You didn’t because it was the one timeline where we won! That’s why he had to die, she had to die, I had to die, they all died…then Tony died…then Westview happened, _Beck_ happened, me being framed happened, this happened…because you, we, let it happen!”

“It had to happen…” Strange gritted out. As if Peter wasn’t the only one he was telling this to.

“And if that’s not all your fault…our fault…then why is what she did because of it all her fault? Maybe a lot of is, fine. But how’s it fair to make her take all the responsibility and all the guilt, when the other people who let it happen won’t do it with her?!”

“All I know is if I can’t blame you, even though I should and she should, then I’m not gonna blame her more! Maybe you should go find a timeline where you don’t and let that Dr. Strange run things here! Maybe that one even has a name that’s not so made up!”

Peter stormed off upstairs to his room. As he did after the arguments he had with Aunt May, MJ and Ned when the stress of living in a world that hated Spider-Man was too much. The arguments he still hadn’t had a chance to go back and apologize for, because he was here.

Because Wanda’s actions kept him here. Actions she only caused because of…actions that could have been stopped on an alien planet long before. But they weren’t. Because of what someone decided had to happen.

Because others weren’t strong enough to create another possible outcome.

Peter wanted to go to Wanda and apologize then and there. But he was still so worked up, he might wind up going back downstairs to yell at the wizard some more. Yell at him for everything he judged had to happen…from Titan to upper New York, London, Westview and beyond.

Better to get some sleep first. Then try to face everyone who needed to hear more words from him – for one reason or another – tomorrow.

Unknown to Peter, the woman in the room next door had the same dilemma. Use her overwhelming emotions to utterly destroy the wizard who destroyed her, Vision and everyone else for more than five years…or go to the other person in the house and use those emotions for comfort instead.

Yet for all the reasons she had to use those emotions for destruction…and there were a lot…she didn’t have enough left in her for that. She was drained enough long before tonight. Long before so much. If anything, this sucked out what little she had left, leaving quiet resignation instead of world destroying rage.

Maybe that was progress. Progress made days before every universe ended because of her. But it seemed that was all there was to hope for.

As for using those emotions for comfort…that just wasn’t possible. Wanda created nightmares and spread pain and trauma. She didn’t heal it. She never had and never could.

No matter how much she wished someone, anyone, was here right now to teach her how.

And not just for her benefit.

************************************  
Yet none of that went through Wanda’s head, when she woke up to the sound of Peter’s screams hours later.

None of that stopped her from rushing into his room. Or rushing to his bed when she saw him tossing and turning violently, muttering words like “Beck” “train” and “Leave me alone”

She paused for a half-second, trying to figure out how or if she should wake him. Until he shot up and woke himself. Which wasn’t so much of a relief when he kept looking around, then fell off the bed when he saw her.

Peter slid himself away from Wanda in fear. Which was all too logical, all too familiar…and for a second, all too crushing for Wanda. Until he spoke up.

“Are you real?”

A question he repeated when Strange came in next. A question he repeated a few more times, all as Wanda realized he actually wasn’t afraid because of her.

But Wanda caused fear. She always had. She never took it away. Not in the right way.

Yet none of that went through Wanda’s head as she knelt down in front of Peter. 

All she could think was that he needed help. And somehow, she remembered a way to give it to her.

“Take my hand,” Wanda asked him.

“If you’re going to – “ Strange started before a red-eyed glare from Wanda silenced him. Red eyes that faded into something softer the second they looked back at Peter. Enough so that a still shaking Peter then took her hands.

She didn’t use magic with them or on him, as Strange surely feared. All Wanda wanted to do was let Peter touch them.

“My hands are real. They feel real, don’t they? Which means the rest of me is real…and it’s not just me who’s real here,” Wanda assured.

She pulled down Peter’s sheets, then his pillows, and let him feel them enough to realize they were real. She took a few more items and let him touch them to feel they were real too, until it sunk in that the whole room was real as well.

“You’re all real?” Peter said more than asked, then breathed a sigh of relief when Wanda nodded yes. “Oh God…oh, that’s the one thing from home I didn’t miss…but I thought I was finally done with those dreams…”

“What dreams?” Wanda didn’t stop herself from asking in time. But instead of saying it was none of her business, Peter was trying to find the words to answer her. None were coming out, though.

“Wait a minute,” Peter stumbled onto remembering a shortcut. “You can read minds! You can go in there and find out that way, and I won’t have to say it out loud!”

“Now that cannot be an option –” Strange started again before being cut off again, by more than just a red eyed stare.

“Go downstairs! If you’d rather accuse me than help him, go! Please…” Wanda gritted out perhaps the most threatening please in history, before Strange ultimately relented and left them alone – keeping himself on standby to go right back upstairs, nonetheless.

Wanda blocked him and his lingering threats out, now fully focused on reminding Peter about the other threat to him in this room. Better that she was the one to do it than him. “Peter, you don’t want me in your head…”

“If you were gonna hurt me, you wouldn’t have helped me already. Go on, you have my permission…and I trust you.”

Wanda had dozens of arguments for why there was no way he should. All of them disappeared from her mind when she looked at him…saw his need to let out whatever was haunting him, and his desperation from knowing he couldn’t do it on his own…and was looking at the only thing that could help him.

Whether or not Strange could do it far better, he didn’t ask for him. Probably trusted him even less than she did right now. But he trusted her.

Wanda didn’t know how to deal with someone feeling that way about her anymore. If she ever did before.

All she knew was he needed help. Needed her to do more than only look at his outsides. So inside she went.

There she saw it. Saw “Mysterio” saw Italy, saw London, saw the fake broadcast, saw him pushing away those that still cared for him when he could only see and hear those who didn’t, saw him being sent all through the multiverse afterwards…saw everything that created nightmares he thought he’d finally gotten past until now.

And it broke her almost as badly in the waking world as it broke him in the dream one.

“Peter….I…I’m so sorry…” was all Wanda could say, as she dealt with being brought to near tears by someone else’s pain besides her own, for the first time in so long…

Then something else hit her even closer to home. “You were…used and lied to by someone who said he had magic…so how…how could you stand it when you saw me? Someone who actually had it and was destroying real worlds with it?”

“I…I didn’t think of it that way,” Peter realized. “I didn’t put a lot of things together till tonight, I guess…” he dwelled on temporarily. “All I thought then was you needed help.”

Wanda shook her head on instinct, trying and failing to speak the thousands of reasons why that just wasn’t true. Not the way he meant it.

“I’m sorry,” Peter spoke first. “I know I said I was sorry before, but this is for something else. I was fighting Thanos in space…so was Dr. Strange and Mr. Stark and a bunch of cool aliens…we could have stopped him before he killed Vision and we didn’t and I’m sorry…”

“That’s not your fault.” Both people in that room were startled by the certainty – the ferocity – in which Wanda said it. “If there is anyone to blame for that…I know it’s not you.”

“How? You weren’t there,” Peter reminded. “But if it’s okay for you to be so sure anyway…how come I can’t say the stuff after that wasn’t all your fault? Even though I wasn’t there?”

“On this, I know a lot more than you…” Wanda tried not to say harshly.

“Well, I read enough about the Battle of Wakanda in class to know one thing. If Thanos didn’t use the Time Stone, you would have saved us all!” Peter confidently stated. “We’d be celebrating you for your sacrifice, not Mr. Stark! The only reason we’re not is because he cheated! With something he shouldn’t have been allowed to have! Without that, you’d be the hero of the universe!”

“But I’m not.”

“You killed the…guy you loved to save everyone else. I think that’s what a hero would do.”

“Then I killed a version of him I made up…to save people I tortured with my own pain. There’s nothing heroic about that.”

“But that wasn’t a different version of you. You did both those things. That means if you’re not all hero, you’re not all villain either. From someone the whole world thought was all villain for a while too, I know how much it hurts when people don’t see that. Whether you did those things or not, it still hurts…and I guess it still hurts more than I thought it did.”

“You didn’t deserve that…you _are_ a hero…” Wanda shakily argued.

“And at least a part of you still is too. And I’m sorry no one remembers that. Like I said, I know how much that hurts…no matter what you actually did or didn’t do…”

Every time Wanda thought she had no more tears to cry, she always proved herself wrong. But this time was different.

This time when she cried, no magic was released. Nothing escaped her but her own misery – a misery that didn’t infect anyone else. No one who wasn’t already affected with their own.

This time, when she cried over Vision and everything else about the last five-plus years, someone was there to hold her. She didn’t know how it felt to be held anymore – certainly not by someone other than Vision, her blood family or her imagined family. But it was happening now.

She certainly didn’t know how it felt to hold someone who was in pain themselves. Someone holding back their own tears, only letting out small little sniffles instead. But for being so new at giving hugs or comfort of any kind, Wanda wasn’t as bad as one might think.

Wanda knew enough to know she wasn’t the one Peter wanted comfort from. Even without looking in his head and knowing the specifics of how he wished he’d let his aunt, girlfriend and best friend help him more before he got here, she would know that.

And Wanda knew enough to know Peter wasn’t the one she really wanted to hold her now. There were not one, but two younger people she wished were in his place now. If she couldn’t have her first choice. Leaving aside how none of those choices were real anymore…probably.

But Peter was real. He was letting her cry on his real shoulder. And she was letting him cry on his. Someone was actually here to help Wanda while she was crying.

Wanda didn’t know how that worked anymore. Maybe Peter had forgotten himself.

Maybe, just maybe…it was okay to reacquaint themselves together.

**************************************

When they broke their hug and wiped their tears, they stayed seated next to Peter’s bed, all words and sobs drained out of them. Until Peter found some again.

“It’s not that easy, you know…still trusting people. Magic or not. I just…maybe it’s not because I’m too naïve or too good…maybe I’m just scared of who I’d be if I didn’t. I was before I got here, and after seeing some of those other Peters, I really am now.”

“It takes a long time to see that trusting the wrong person, when you’re too hurt or scared to know better…isn’t completely your fault. At least you’re further along than I was.”

“Maybe it’s not that. Maybe it’s just…maybe those things happen when we don’t have better options. I mean, Mr. Stark was gone, Fury fell for Beck’s lies too, I couldn’t get much help from Ned and I couldn’t even talk to MJ…but when I did, and when Ned and Happy helped me too… _that’s_ when I could stop him. And if I’d put that together weeks ago, I’d probably be in my world and my own room right now.”

“I had someone then. But it was only one person at a time. First my brother, then Vision…that was it.”

“What about the other Avengers?”

“For a while, until Lagos…I let myself believe I had them too. Then all I had, at least for the really important stuff…was just Vision…is that where I went wrong? Putting all my hopes and dreams for a better life in just one person, over and over? Pietro, Vision…the Scarlet Witch…”

“Tony Stark…”

“Yes…maybe…”

“Oh, wait, sorry…I guess I shouldn’t bring him up to you.”

“Because you know I blamed him for my parents’ death? That I let it turn me evil the first time? Don’t worry, I got past that eventually…but there are far more people you’d want talking about your hero than me.”

“No, you know what? That’s something in your favor too! There are tons of villains who blamed Mr. Stark for turning them evil, and I fought two of them! And you’re the only one I know who ever tried not being evil! Who tried forgiving him and using all their powers for good instead! Maybe you didn’t always do that, but you did something they never did! They tried! And you’re still trying now!”

“When I have no other choice.”

“That’s still more than Beck ever did. Or Liz’s dad. Or Ultron, the Mandarin, Obadiah Stane, Justin Hammer, Ivan Vanko…wow, so many people who’d rather keep trying to kill Mr. Stark than help his mentee through nightmares!”

“Okay, okay, I get it…that is a very long list.”

“Right? And I don’t see Wanda Maximoff anywhere on it. I guess it hasn’t been there for a long time.”

“I…I guess I am glad I took myself off it. That much I did do…”

***********************************************

“I didn’t save my uncle. I could have…and I could have made sure the last words I said to him weren’t angry ones. But I didn’t.”

“I didn’t save my brother. The last time I saw him, I laughed when he bragged about how much older he was than me. 20 minutes later…that wasn’t true anymore.”

“The last time he saw you, you were smiling? Wow…well, there are worse ways to go…how did Vision feel when he went? The first time in Wakanda, not the second time….and the time in Westview?”

“He wasn’t afraid. He didn’t fear me or what I was doing to him…I think…the last thing he felt that first time was love. For me, for us…it was more than what he felt the second time.”

“We already established Thanos cheated and it shouldn’t count. So let’s throw that time out. Should we do that for the Westview time too?”

“No…even then, he was content too. Hopeful. I made him from my mind, I kept things from him and myself, I threatened him once…and when it was over, he was…just as content to live his last moments with me as the real Vision was. He even gave me hope that somehow, we’d find each other again…maybe that’s why I needed to believe if I just read more of that book, I’d find our kids too…and surprise him before I found him next…”

“Wait…didn’t they make another Vision too? Where’s he? Maybe – ”

“I can’t begin to let myself think about that. I’ve done enough by wanting more than I should have already. I just…I can’t do it anymore.”

“Okay…but at least when you said goodbye to him twice, he was happy. A synthizoid and a copy of a synthizoid was happy and in love when they died, because they were with you. That’s incredible. At least you know for sure in their last moments with you, they had nothing but love for you…and they were happy their last seconds were with you.”

“I’m sure your uncle was too.”

“I know logically, he probably was…but there’s always gonna be that part of me that doubts it. If there wasn’t, I don’t think I would have become Spider-Man. But you don’t need that part in you too.”

“Maybe I don’t. Maybe that’s…something.”

***********************************

“Wow. I never thought that way about grief before.”

“Neither did I. I wish I didn’t repress that with everything else until it was too late. I really do. I wish I remembered that…at least I once had people to grieve over. All he had to grieve him was me. Just like Pietro.”

“Just like Uncle Ben. Well, no, he had a bunch of family and friends to do it, but…not the whole world. Not like with Mr. Stark. But still…every time I talked to people that didn’t know him, who told me to just move on…maybe if they all knew him and knew why it couldn’t be that easy to forget him, like they know why with Mr. Stark…maybe then it would have been different.”

“…if they’d asked to know more about him, would that have helped? Then or…”

“I don’t know…if someone else asked about Vision and your brother, how much would that have helped? Then or…”

“Well…maybe it’s better to find out now than never.”

“Maybe…”

***************************************

“Endless nothingness…yeah, I get how that feels.”

“From Ben?”

“From Titan. When I blipped…it wasn’t right away like with you, or Mr. Strange, or the others…it went on and on and I was begging not to go until I felt…yeah, an endless nothing’s as good as anything to describe it. I mean, it probably lasted about 10 seconds, but it felt longer…”

“If that’s how you felt…I passed that on to you by not destroying the stone faster…just like I passed it on to the people of Westview. Only for much longer.”

“And I helped give it to you when we didn’t take Thanos out first. I think that makes us even. I mean, if you don’t blame me, then there’s no way I’m gonna blame you.”

“…I’m still really sorry. Whether I helped make it happen or not, I’m sorry that happened to you. To everyone…”

“And I’m sorry all that happened to you. Whether I was a part of it or not. So let’s just forgive each other and do better next time. Now that we’re actually fighting on the same planet together this time, maybe we can. Maybe it won’t always be the same universe, but it’s something!”

“I guess it is…”

“And I guess we gotta forgive Mr. Strange too. I mean, whatever he did or didn’t do then, we need him to do more now. He can’t do that if we don’t help him.”

“If he doesn’t want us to help him.”

“Then I guess we gotta suck it up and give him a reason to. I mean, it’s still not fair. It’s not like there was anything or anyone else besides the Darkhold to help you before we got here. Or anything or anyone besides Vision or your brother those other times! Now there’s a better option and he won’t give you a chance to learn it…it’s unfair, but I guess telling him that hasn’t worked so far.”

“I suppose if there are _magic_ words, who better to find them than me now?”

“Oh yeah, that’s a good one!”

The shared laughter finally subsided after several seconds.

“I’ll back you up if you need to find an extra word. Or consonant or verb, even an exclamation point!”

“That’s all right. I think I need to find those on my own too. I need to do a lot of things…”

“But not all of them alone, right?”

“No…not all of them. As long as I have another option…one that’s a little better rested after some more pleasant dreams…in the two hours of night we have left…”

“Okay, I get the point, m…Wanda,” Peter cut himself off before saying a specific word starting with m. An insensitive one to call her for many reasons. Yet Wanda either brushed it off or missed the near-miss completely.

Once Peter saw Wanda close her eyes too, he got the point again and followed her lead. Though they were still sitting on the floor, leaning against the side of the bed like they had for hours, sleeping or at least napping here was as good an option as any to them.

“Thank you, Peter,” Wanda said without opening her eyes. Not trusting it wouldn’t be flooded with a few final tears anyway if she tried. Not trusting that thanking someone, anyone for doing something for her and not to her, wouldn’t finally hit her then and make sleep impossible.

“You too, Wanda,” Peter said with his eyes closed too. He briefly kicked himself for not saying a full thank you too – unaware that someone saying something even close to that to Wanda was still so rare. Rare enough to almost make her cry her first tears of something other grief in so, so long.

Yet both kept their eyes closed, and clear, as they both drifted off to their first clear sleep in so, so long.


	3. Chapter 3

Wanda didn’t need actual magic words for Dr. Strange the next morning. She did choose them carefully enough – and ignored enough memories about his exposed role in Vision’s first death – that it might as well have been her best trick yet.

If she could will herself to be around the man whose weapons killed her parents for two years, she could will herself to be humble for the man who gave Vision’s second killer his murder weapon. As long as she never thought about it in those terms and many others again.

She made herself remember Peter was right there, pretending not to eavesdrop in the other room, if she slipped up or if the sorcerer still wouldn’t budge. She tried to spare him from being needed, by swearing as convincingly as possible that she wouldn’t use or recite anything from the Darkhold again. In return, she still needed his help to show him the right way to help repair what she broke.

She held back every scornful look, every thought about his inaction and hypocrisy, and every biting remark she’d already held in for the last 12 hours. Just a few more minutes – and then a few more days, weeks or however long time passed around here – of holding her tongue. That’s all she needed to get through this, fix it and never willingly think about him and what he did again.

It also required looking right at him at some point. Might as well get that over with now too.

When she did, however, Wanda didn’t see the scornful, accusing look he threw at her every chance he got up until yesterday. Or any of the looks he probably gave Peter during their argument. This seemed…more thoughtful. Less like he was jumping down her throat. And more like he was actually giving her a second thought beyond “crazy lonely witch lady.”

Did he hear any of her talks with Peter last night? There was probably no way he couldn’t have if he wanted to. Or did Peter give him one more talking to before she came down this morning? Either way, she didn’t feel contempt for her very existence coming off of him.

At this point, that was a big win.

“Very well, then,” he finally spoke, confirming the victory. “But the multiverse is deteriorating too fast to waste time. And too fast to be as thorough as I should in instructing you. That means you have to listen, learn and follow my every instruction. And you can tell Mr. Parker that goes for him too, in case he didn’t hear me back there. Are we clear, Miss Maximoff?”

Wanda once more bit back any snide comments, thoughts or looks she might have had for him. But it was a little easier this time than it was just 30 seconds ago. Maybe because he was biting back all his snide little gestures and words for the first time too, to do what had to be done.

That was a better way to do what had to be done than many others. Yet Wanda kept willing herself to hold those thoughts down. At least until the multiverse was stable enough for them.

For now, it was back to working with a loved one’s murderer again.

“Very well, doctor. I concur.”

*****************************************

Wanda was a natural. Just as Peter figured she’d be.

It wasn’t that hard to figure out. If she was already the most powerful witch in the world, broke a multiverse and took over a town without trying, she’d be awesome at good guy magic when she was trying. And once Dr. Strange could see that for himself, lay off browbeating her like some substitute gym teacher, and teach her instead of just lecturing at her, she’d be even awesomer.

And look at that. That’s exactly what was happening.

They had the routine down pat in no time. Find a weak spot somewhere in the world. Then Dr. Strange would start fixing it with his magic, while Wanda helped out with her regular magic. Then the doc would go over some of his spells for Wanda, and after a slip up or two – and occasionally an encouraging word or gesture from a Muggle helper – she performed them and got that part of the worlds right as rain again much faster.

Then whenever they could rest up between repair jobs – and magic fights with multiverse monsters – Wanda spent her down time studying more of Strange’s spells. But it soon wasn’t lost on her, or on Strange, that she really performed better the next morning whenever she talked to Peter the night before.

When she shared her burdens with someone who had no magic but the power of listening – and of kind words in between – her magical abilities skyrocketed hours later. When someone was around her who looked at her with awe, not fear, she showed far less fear when performing her new and old magic. And when she got the chance to help lift the burdens of that someone in return, she feared herself far, far less than the Wanda that Strange met ever could have.

Peter, for his part, was also kind enough to keep any bragging to himself. The point was clear enough without it anyway.

As it turned out, in an environment where Wanda didn’t just have to make terrible choices that hurt her, hurt everyone around her or both, she thrived much better. In an environment where she was encouraged and given actual resources to do better, rather than have her grief and mistakes rubbed in without even a minute of relief, she could do things that weren’t fueled by grief, mistakes and her losses after all.

When there was someone there to encourage her, not condemn her, she could do things that were commendable. When someone taught her instead of using her, fearing what she would do with more power or trying to take that power themselves, her power actually fixed everything around her rather than destroy it.

And when she had a real chance to do something truly good – not just self-sacrificing or self-destructive acts that she never had any real chance to get out of – she actually did good.

She was a fast learner in all things, not just in learning how to cause pain and torture. She was an eager learner, which was good as long as there were people who gently – not scoldingly – instructed her not to jump ahead too quickly.

All for her own good – but not in the way countless others told her to do things, or let things be done to her, for her own good. There was a massive difference she hadn’t been allowed to understand very often.

The only thing this compared to was her two years of relative peace with the Avengers. The one year or so where losing Pietro didn’t stop her from doing much of anything but mourning her. The several months where she didn’t just have one man in her life that loved her, but a bunch of people that lifted her up, taught her and encouraged rather than dismissed or feared her.

When Steve practiced with her and made her feel safe in the heat of battle, like only one other person had before. When Clint called her, invited her to his farm and let her see what a full family looked and felt like again. When Natasha taught her skills that didn’t just involve her magic, and didn’t just come from the people and things that made her and used her. When Sam taught her coping techniques that apparently weren’t as long forgotten as she thought.

All from a time where Wanda thought, for one brief moment, she had people on her side and not just one person again. A time long gone – a time she didn’t really blame any of them for letting die too, both after the Civil War and the Blip.

They all had losses and new lives to deal with too, which were surely far more well-adjusted than hers and didn’t need her to complicate. If she had been capable of reaching out, though…even just a day or two before Westview…then maybe so much less would need fixing now. Then she wouldn’t be here…

Then she wouldn’t have met Peter. Or eventually learned far healthier forms of magic from one of Vision’s killers. But getting two out of three good things at a time was still almost unheard of.

Yet Peter was right. A world – even a broken and unstable one – that gave Wanda more good options, choices, resources and people instead of unending torture, loss, misery and no possible outcomes but more misery…it was a world Wanda, even after all she suffered, could thrive in.

Could do something other than hurt people and herself in. Learn something other than causing hurt and pain. Feel something other than hurt and pain.

Be around someone who made her feel something other than hurt and pain. Not the kind of…something she felt around Vision. That just felt wrong to think about with him, even if he didn’t already have a girlfriend in the original Earth.

More like something…long dormant and almost forgotten. Something that…might just have persevered inside her after all.

Whatever it was, it gave Wanda more and more confidence every day to fix the multiverse she broke. To do something other than stay in her bubble of loss, pain, self and universal destruction every day.

Maybe it truly was as simple as the kid said. All she needed was a real chance.

A chance that turned out to come not a moment too soon.

****************************************

Of course there was one Big Bad demon creature controlling all the others. Of course this walking nightmare had connections to the Darkhold. Of course he’d been waiting for Wanda to use it and free him by breaking the multiverse, and now he was stepping up his plans to make sure it would never be repaired.

And of course, he had to do so by creating walking nightmares to stop them in their tracks. All he had to do was make sure they got lost, separated, and perfectly vulnerable to having their darkest nightmares attack them while they were awake.

For Wanda, he pulled out every nightmare she had of Westview, of people choking to death on her pain, and of S.W.O.R.D.’s Vision attacking her with hands and words. He trapped her in every nightmare she had of people calling her a monster, throwing every monstrous act she caused against her, and drilling it into her head over and over that she was nothing but destruction.

It was nothing she hadn’t tortured herself with almost every night in her cabin. And almost every night of her life, in some different form over some other different crime with some other mob of her victims attacking her. It was nothing that hadn’t already convinced her time and again she was meant for nothing but death and loss, and would never be meant for anything better.

And yet…this time in the middle of it, she stopped cringing in fear. Of the nightmare version of her victims and loved ones, and of herself as well.

She stopped, faced the mob that surrounded her and reminded her of all she’d done and all she was ever supposed to be…and she laughed.

“This is it?” she asked. “You’ve all told me far worse, done far worse and made me feel far worse almost every night in my head. This…this is a nightmare on autopilot!”

For the first time in any nightmare, she faced the reflections of her crimes, pain, loss and guilt and didn’t cringe. Not so much because she wasn’t afraid of them or herself anymore…but because this version of her nightmares was just so…basic.

“Whoever you are, I admit this might be scary to someone who didn’t know better. But to someone who’s tortured herself with memories her whole life, far worse than anyone who uses carbon copies ever could…this is the work of an amateur.”

With that, the sub-par nightmare visions of Wanda’s past started poofing away. But not before those that lingered a while longer said in a unified, demonic voice “Maybe to you…”

The rest of the nightmare world and its inhabitants faded away, bringing Wanda back to reality right where she left it. Yet the visions had faded from her memory and concern long before they officially left. She was more focused on their last words instead.

And when she pieced together what they meant and implied – and who might not see through the nightmares like she did – she felt her first bit of real, Wanda nightmare like fear since the enemy attacked.

“Peter…”

Wanda flew all through the open fields and small towns in the vicinity, ignoring the troubled skies above her and looking for something, anything down below that might be…some kind of force field of nightmares, she didn’t know.

All she knew that if Peter was going through the same torture she just had…a torture he was less equipped to see through…the kind of torture he had already lived through with Beck and still had real nightmares over…she had to find him right now.

She had to get him before he didn’t know what was real again. She had to get him back to reality and keep him there. She had to protect him with more than just hand holding this time. She had to protect him, to save him, to save someone…but mostly him…

She begged to herself to let her save him, and would have started begging out loud until he heard a much louder, “Wait, Wanda?”

Wanda got out of her own head enough to see an oncoming Peter – a split second before they crashed into each other and landed on the field below.

Apparently she really didn’t see where she was going. Or who she was flying into. Wait…

“Peter!” she shot up and ran over to the fully masked Spider-Man, taking his hands and letting go only long enough to unmask him. “Look at me, I’m real, I’m right here…”

“I know, I know! I knew before you crashed into me, it’s okay! Your crown didn’t even hit my shoulder that bad, we’re all good!” he somehow seemed to assure her.

“You’re okay?” Wanda still asked anyway. “The nightmares, they didn’t…”

“Peter tingle. I guess it works to expose nightmares and fake magic shows too!” he confusingly but cheerfully said, finally letting it sink in that he was okay. Yet as Wanda started feeling relief, Peter’s relief faded in turn when he asked, “Wait, what about you?”

“I guess no nightmare demon can scare me more than I scare myself,” she echoed, surprising herself and relieving Peter with her new ability to kind of laugh it off. Either way, their relief finally synched up as they realized the other was okay after all.

Which left… “Where’s Strange?” Wanda remembered.

“I thought he was with you!” They both hoped they were wrong to be worried as they took back to the air to find their…guide.

This time, they were both very wrong.

When they found whatever zone of nightmares their new enemy put Strange in, they found…a lot more too.

Mobs of blipped people surrounding Strange, accusing him of letting them die. The kind of visions that Wanda and Peter were somewhat numb to by now. But apparently Strange, of all people who judged them for their demons and mistakes…not so much.

Their echoes, and another voice from the sky that kept repeating “The bill comes due…” seemed to be taking quite a toll on the previously immovable sorcerer. A toll that was apparently keeping him from just blasting or poofing his way out.

So Wanda and Peter would have to do it for him.

********************************************

It was a spectacle that many other people from many other worlds would have done better describing in great detail.

All the details that are really important to know in this world, and this retelling, is that Wanda and Peter were the perfect team.

As Wanda forged a way out for her and Strange, Peter kept just enough demon nightmare people distracted to give them time. When they got out only to face their new enemy, Peter blinded him with webs – and whenever he was thrown backwards, Wanda caught him with her magic and flung him right back into battle.

Whenever Wanda was blasted back and couldn’t avoid a crash landing, Peter shot a web to catch her. Whenever Peter was cornered, Wanda shot him far up into the sky and made sure he landed right on the enemy. And when Wanda shot her magic towards the enemy, Peter fired everything he had to keep him too distracted to hold her back.

By the time Strange rejoined the fight, the enemy finally retreated – although he was far happier with himself than he should have been. Yet that didn’t register to Wanda or Peter, as their adrenaline seemed to start cooling down.

“That…was….AMAZING!” Peter’s adrenaline shot right back up. Although this whole attack was meant to torture them with memories and nightmares, Peter’s memories and excited recaps of what just happened were far from torturous.

Not in a nightmarish way, anyway.

In fact, when Peter started raving about Wanda catching him with his magic, it was downright infectious. Enough to draw a smile from Wanda, as she praised him back for catching her. A smile that got bigger as they traded memories and recaps of how in sync they were in fighting off the enemy.

Wanda almost never fondly remembered any time she used her powers. Or remembered any of her battles with anything but horror, whether she killed or lost someone or not.

But she’d never been in a battle where someone was this excited to fight alongside her. To have been assisted with her magic, and to so eagerly and effortlessly assist her in return. She had fought alongside heroes before, but never in a way quite like this.

Not like it was…a long time ago with…someone else.

For the first time since the days before the Avengers, Ultron and scepters, the burden of battle felt easier. At least alongside another.

For the first time since Lagos, if ever at all, using her powers didn’t feel like a terrible, dangerous, potentially devastating outcome. It didn’t leave her with an aftertaste of fear, bleak relief, dread or shame.

Instead, feeding off of Peter’s excitement over what she did – what they did together – made her feel like this time, using her powers, facing her fears and fighting alongside a partner was something other than a dreadful obligation. Something other than a mistake she had to fix, or a new mistake that would haunt her forever.

This time, reliving it through Peter’s eyes, sharing his sense of triumph and remembering a battle as something other than yet another personal horror…it made the whole thing feel more like…

Fun.

Especially when fighting alongside a Peter again. A real Peter.

“Well, I’m glad you two enjoyed yourself.”

And with that reminder that they weren’t alone – and that someone else had far less reason to be amused from this battle – the fun was over.

“Just a quick reminder, though. While you had a barrel of laughs, the very fabric of reality is barreling even faster off a cliff!”

Strange gestured to the sky above them, which was far more cracked and unstable than it was when they got here. Indeed, while their new enemy had them distracted, he’d also seemed to accelerate the collapse of the multiverse barriers around them.

Far too much for even Strange and Wanda to fix on their own, at least in this area. To say nothing of what other areas were too far gone for other sorcerers to repair now.

“Go right ahead, though. Enjoy the empty spectacle of so-called victory while you can. Now that it’s probably your last chance to do so! Now that no lessons, team-ups, life lessons or sorcerers around the world are powerful enough to stop what’s coming anymore!” Strange attacked them – yet unlike all the other times he snapped at them since they joined up, Wanda and Peter already sensed his real target wasn’t them.

“Live in hollow triumph while you can! Meanwhile, half of reality is on the brink of dying for the second time on my watch, while the other half is finally just about ready to join them! And this time there’s no magic snap in any timeline that’ll bring them back! Once was enough!”

Strange turned away from them, as they took in his scolding and realized just how much it wasn’t meant for them. “Once was _enough_ …” they heard him mutter in the shakiest voice they’d ever heard from him, confirming everything they suspected.

Seeing actual guilt from him over…certain events should have filled Wanda and Peter with some satisfaction. Some measure of small justice and vindication. Right now, seeing the man who let them and their loved ones die, just so billions other than their loved ones could come back instead…

Seeing him like this only made them feel sorry. Not vengeful.

“Maybe it’s time to think differently,” they finally heard him again. “Maybe doing the same thing over and over really is an insanity we can’t repeat here. What if…what if we’ve ignored the solution under our nose this entire time? What if I have…”

Strange turned around. But he didn’t turn around with empty hands. Now they were filled with something Wanda was just beginning to hope she’d never see again.

“My magic, our light magic…it can’t fix all of this before it consumes us all. Maybe the only thing that can…is the magic that caused it in the first place,” Strange reasoned in a tone all too hauntingly familiar to Wanda. “Maybe the Scarlet Witch really can fix the world she broke. Faster than Wanda Maximoff can.”

“No.”

If Wanda hadn’t said that, Peter would have. So he was content to stay quiet as Wanda elaborated further. “You wore me down until I never wanted to touch that book again. Now you’re changing your mind?”

“It said so itself. It’s the Scarlet Witch’s destiny to end the world,” Strange reminded. “So maybe no one but the Scarlet Witch can reverse it…and maybe her only chance is with this.”

“No!” Wanda doubled down. “Even with everything you taught me…it won’t be enough if I read it again. If it makes me think I could see my sons again, just by letting the universe crack a little more…maybe that’s exactly what he’s counting on too. Whether they’re really there or not, they’ll make me think they are and then…I know what I’ll let happen.”

“You won’t listen this time.”

“But what if I do? And what if I don't?” Wanda pleaded with more familiar sorrow. “I can’t make that choice again…”

“And what if you’re the only one that can?”

“I’ve done that enough!” Wanda cried out. “Please…don’t tell me there’s no other way again…”

At that, Peter stepped forward again. Glaring at Strange to silently tell him that he would take him down if he put this burden on Wanda yet again. 

There was no way he could try it and win, of course. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try. If only to give her a few extra seconds where she wouldn’t have to sacrifice her own love and mental health yet again.

When Wanda noticed him and noticed that determination from him, she instantly felt calmer. That unlike all the other times she had to make such a choice…maybe, just maybe, there was still a chance it didn’t have to come down to just her again.

Even Strange seemed to let it back him down as well.

“Fine. Then I’ll do it,” he offered. “There must be one big spell in the Darkhold that can reverse this. Or at least reverse it enough that we can fix the rest. Tell me where to find such a spell and I’ll perform it myself.”

“I can’t.”

“I’m not asking you to read it yourself. Just tell me what page it’s on and I’ll do the rest. You read the entire Darkhold in your cabin for weeks! Surely you can stand to just point me in the right direction!”

“I can’t, because I didn’t! I didn’t read the whole book! And even if I could stand it, I couldn’t finish it now! Not in the time we have!”

Both Peter and Strange didn’t know what to make of that. Neither did Wanda – or at least she didn’t want to know what it meant. But she had to explain more anyway.

“Look, there are millions upon millions of hidden spells, chapters and volumes in that book. Even I couldn’t unlock half of them. And when I thought I could rescue my sons, I stopped trying. If there’s no time for another option besides the Darkhold, there’s no way there’s enough time for me to unlock the rest of it now. And if I can’t…then you can’t either,” Wanda informed Strange, not to belittle him but to press the facts. 

“For all you theoretically know about the Darkhold, you’ve never read it. None of your sorcerers have. If there’s some deep dark buried spell in there that can fix this… _none_ of us know the Darkhold well enough to find it and use it in time.”

“So who does?”

At last, Peter spoke up with words and not silent threats again. Yet once again, the magicless one of the trio threw the two most powerful beings in the world off with mere words.

“If you guys don’t know enough about the book…lets go find someone who does.”

“The only ones who could do that are masters of the dark arts. Surely even you aren’t naïve enough to place all our fates in the hands of a villain. A _real_ villain,” Strange corrected before Peter could throw past accusations of Wanda’s villainy in his face.

“Well, most villains want to live too. They’re not all like Thanos or the new guy. If we don’t fix this right now, everyone’s gonna die! And I’m sure at least one dark arts person would want to help us, at least so they can stay alive to do more dark arts stuff! If one of them knows enough about the Darkhold too, then that’s just what we need! Right?”

“I’m sure they’d demand a lot more than that as payment. Payment we might live to regret later. The bill comes due…” Strange repeated.

“Then let’s stay alive so we can pay it first! We’ll work out a payment plan later, but that’ll be later! If there’s no other way and you guys can’t do it, who else are we gonna find that can?”

It was Wanda who answered him. With her back turned to both him and Strange. As it had been ever since Peter’s idea made her see she had a terrible choice to make in this after all.

“We need an expert in the Darkhold. Someone who knows it cover to cover, to help us find the spells that can fix this. Someone who would help us, if only to stay alive.”

“Or…or just so she can _gloat_.” Wanda’s resigned bitterness rang loud and clear.

“Miss Maximoff?” Strange asked with weariness. But unlike in the past, it was weariness that wasn’t entirely out of suspecting or accusing her.

“Wanda?” Peter asked, with far more open compassion and concern. Concern which only heightened when Wanda turned back around, an all too familiar look of resignation on her face.

But there was no way around it. At least for now, it was an unavoidable outcome that Wanda could at least try to live with later.

Depending on what price… _she’d_ make her and others pay for this later.

Like that, the fun was over. For the first witch in this group, anyway.

“I know where to find someone.”


	4. Chapter 4

Peter didn’t think he liked Agatha Harkness too much.

Not because she was some kind of dark witch. It was his idea to find one, after all.

Truthfully, after Wanda poofed him and Strange into a suburban living room, he was more freaked out by “Agnes the nosy neighbor” than he was when Wanda touched her forehead and transformed her into someone with wilder hair and less grey clothes.

She fell backwards onto her couch, then looked back and forth at her uninvited guests – mainly at Wanda – then started smiling and cackling widely. Once she said, “So the Scarlet Witch ends the world and I get my front row seat back…” Peter started to understand what Wanda meant about her gloating.

If he didn’t then, the next dozen or so digs she made at Wanda drove it home.

In the meantime, Strange managed to get down to actual business. Once he showed her they had her old book, he offered to restore some of her magic if she found a spell inside to fix the multiverse – half now, and half when the job was done.

Agatha took great joy in how easily she found such a spell, and in how Wanda hadn’t done it earlier. As Peter watched Wanda struggle not to react or respond to her little comments, Peter was a bit more certain he didn’t like Agatha by then.

To the point where when Agatha noticed him – and poofed his mask away with the little magic she got back as part one of the deal – it didn’t make much more of a difference. Even when she said “I knew Wanda liked to make ‘em young. But I figured her next pretend rebound guy would be someone who’d been to pretend college!”

“You talk to us. You _don’t_ talk to him. That’s part of the deal.” That, not any of Agatha’s remarks about Wanda, was what made Wanda talk back to her.

But it was a short lived moment, as Wanda had to go right back to work and memorize the spell Agatha found. Once she did, she could telepathically send the spell’s text to every sorcerer of Kamar-Taj, so that when the time came, they could all recite it and repair every corner of the multiverse together.

As she did for countless weeks, Wanda memorized the text of the Darkhold and burned it into her brain. As she did for countless weeks, she had to do so while listening to other darker voices and commands at the same time.

And as she did for countless days before the multiverse broke, she heard younger, more innocent and more imperiled voices as well. _“Mom, help us! Save us!”_

But unlike on those other days, three other people could hear them as well.

Yet also unlike on those other days, Wanda then closed the Darkhold rather than listen to…voices that weren’t really there again.

“There. I know the spell now,” Wanda insisted. “Let’s get out of here. We need to be at the most vulnerable spot in the multiverse, and recite the spell there. It needs all the magic we have, so we need to bring Agatha too.”

“How generous. You sure you don’t want to give my neighbors fair warning before they suffer first, for once? Or tell them at least this time, when they wanna kill themselves in a few minutes, they might just get their wish?”

“Miss Harkness…” Strange began, ready to give a stern warning in defense of Wanda, not to scold Wanda, for once.

“We don’t have time, you’re right.” It was Wanda who finished Strange’s sentence, if not as thoroughly as he planned to.

“We can’t let other people…real or imagined…play tricks on us right now. Let’s just go and do what we need to do. Please…let’s just leave here.”

Strange bit his tongue, even more successfully than Peter had since they got here. Agatha even bit hers long enough for them to poof out of her house and out of Westview entirely.

But as soon as they reached their destination to cast their part of the spell, and as soon as Wanda and Strange had their backs turned while making their final preparations, Agatha crept up to Peter as she loosened her tongue right back up.

“Psst! I know I’m not allowed to talk to you,” she said, comedically lowering her voice. “But on the off chance she let you keep some spare free will, you don’t have to obey her either.”

“She didn’t take away my free will. She’s too busy using her’s to ignore you,” Peter broke. “And she’s got a lot more important things to do than that right now. And if she can’t do them, you won’t be around to pick on her anymore. So is that really more important to you?”

Peter figured that would do the job. Until Agatha responded with, “After what she put me though? Eh…going out on a nice little ‘I told you so’ is far from the worst curtain call. Trust me, she raised the bar way too high on that one.”

Peter went back to merely flinching at Agatha’s Wanda barbs. Which only seemed to fuel her on further.

“Ah, come on, kid. If she’d bothered to tell you the whole truth, you’d be slinging a different web right now. Trust me…and unlike her, you _can_ trust me…if anyone else from Westview was here right now, they’d fill you in on a lot worse.”

“I know they would. Because she already told me everything. Everything about you, and everything she did to them,” Peter filled her in. “And I do trust her. I trust she hates what she did more than they did, and even more than you do. But you just hate what she did to _you_.”

“And unlike you, I don’t believe in kicking someone when they’re down. Especially when they’re trying so hard to get up the right way again.”

“Well, either she scrambled your brain too much for you to understand, or she actually didn’t. You don’t know enough either way, so that’s not on me,” Agatha shot back.

“I know she didn’t put you in the Hex. You came in on your own. Unlike everyone else, you could have left at any time, and you could have stopped her at any time. But you stayed there just to get her powers. Long enough to get yourself trapped, because of what you did to her. Not because of anything she made you do to her. Maybe that’s not all on her…and you know it, don’t you?” Peter stumbled onto.

“Okay, kid, I appreciate a young guy going all stupid and googly eyed over an older gal, believe me. But –”

“What? Ew, no! It’s not like that!”

Peter was now flustered and taken aback – a little less so when he thankfully realized Wanda didn’t hear any of that. But there was still a lot to recover from.

“I mean, I don’t mean ew like…ew. I mean, obviously she’s the furthest thing from ew like that, everyone knows that,” Peter acknowledged in a hopefully not-gross way. “But I meant ew like…I have a girlfriend! My own age! And Wanda’s a widow, kind of! And…”

He stopped himself, just as he realized when Agatha claimed he felt…like _that_ about Wanda, it made him feel as uncomfortable as it did whenever Mr. Stark – and more others than Peter would like to remember – referred to May as a hot aunt. They weren’t wrong about her being beautiful, it was just…icky for him to think of family in that way.

The same feeling Agatha made him feel about thinking of Wanda that way just now. As if she was…

“Okay, fine. So you’re one of those _actual_ nice guys. We’ll go with that for the sake of argument,” Agatha conceded. “In that case…I guess it’s only fair to give you fair warning. If you haven’t figured it out already.”

“Figured out what?” Peter took the bait and almost immediately knew he might regret it.

“We both know we heard Wanda’s kids when she read the Darkhold. And we both know it wasn’t just a trick. She does too, but asking her to face reality right way is just too big an ask. I don’t know why the goateed one let it slide too, but he won’t matter anyway.”

“The point is, she made me ‘learn’ enough about basic storytelling formulas to know what’ll happen. Her kids are alive somehow for real. She really heard them when she broke the world. Your new pal’s gonna reveal he had them the whole time, right before she can fix what she did to get them back the first time!”

“Then when the time comes, when he offers her the chance to keep one small corner of reality with them, if she’ll just let the rest of it and us die…she’ll do it. No matter how many others don’t get that deal, she’ll take what she wants for herself and her mind babies anyway. Just like always.”

“I mean, its formula 101! But at least I know she’s gonna let me die! You might as well get a few minutes to accept it too.”

But Peter wouldn’t accept it. He just…wouldn’t. “That’s not gonna happen. Not the last part, anyway.”

“I mean, I didn’t make it so she has to lose stuff…loved ones, her mind, whatever…in every single battle! It’s gonna keep happening with or without me in the audience! That’s just how it works!”

“Well, it shouldn’t have to! It doesn’t have to! Just once, she should get to be a hero without losing something she loves! She shouldn’t have to choose between one or the other at all! Maybe instead of standing by and laughing at it, you could help her find another choice for once! Maybe in at least one universe, that kind of choice doesn’t have to happen anymore! It’s happened enough in all of them!”

“Wow…way to harp on a point that has nothing to do with her at all. I’m almost impressed.”

Agatha couldn’t read minds…or at least Wanda didn’t tell Peter she could. If she could, Wanda would have told her. He trusts her. Agatha couldn’t make him stop that.

Just like she couldn’t know about all the Peters Peter visited in the multiverse…all the Peters who gave up love, a normal life and happiness for duty every single time. All those Peters who never got a chance to not have to choose between one or the other. All those Peters that might have crossed his mind while he was talking about…someone else with that unfair problem.

Agatha couldn’t have read his mind to see that. Or maybe Peter really was too open for his own good. Either way…it didn’t matter. It couldn’t.

“Look kiddo, you can make it about her or you or a guy named Ralph, it doesn’t matter. You can’t save her either way. Whether she should be or not. And it’s pretty offensive on a few levels that you think you can be her savior anyway.”

“I know about the levels, I have a girlfriend!” Peter got mixed up for a bit. “And I don’t want to save her, I want to help her. She’s never had enough people that only wanted to help her. Maybe we wouldn’t be here if she did.”

“Well, we know one person that wouldn’t, I give you that,” Agatha once again missed the point.

“You’re just here cause you need her to be the villain. Like everyone else does. And that’s probably just because you want Mr. Strange to give you her powers, isn’t it?” Peter finally worked out.

“Look around you, boy-o. Could I do any worse with them than she did? Could anyone?”

Agatha was content to let that be the last word. Whether she just wanted to have it or whether she really thought she’d won with it, Peter didn’t care. He was almost content to let her think she’d won, if that would let this end.

By then, he was all but certain he didn’t like Agatha Harkness very much.

And that was before she was proven right.

****************************************

“Called it!”

To everyone but Agatha, though, the sight of Billy and Tommy Maximoff being levitated in the air by their mother’s new enemy…it was shocking enough that they could ignore Agatha’s bragging.

Between that, Agatha, Strange and Peter being magically bound in mid-air themselves, the multiverse around them in its final stage of collapse, and their enemy distracting a freed Wanda with the sight of her children before she could start reciting the universe repairing spell…there were more important things to focus on.

It didn’t stop Agatha from continuing to chime in, though.

“Yep, just as I figured!” she declared when the enemy showed how Billy and Tommy’s magical particles were lost in the multiverse after the Hex was lifted, then landed in the souls of their identical, lonely, orphaned selves in another universe.

“Well, I could have told you that! Oh, wait…” she teased when the enemy revealed how he sent Billy and Tommy’s cries for help through the Darkhold, to nudge Wanda into doing exactly what she did to set him free and bring reality to the brink.

Now that it was on the brink of being fixed or broken forever, the enemy had a deal for Wanda. Give her her children and give them a protected corner of the universe, where they would be safe and together forever. Or she could perform the spell, and her children would be reduced to particles that wouldn’t find new hosts next time. Or ever again.

“Welp, existence had a good run, everyone!” Agatha capped off. “But if the power to let it end was in the hands of an unattached gal, then I suppose…”

“Miss Harkness, you’ve helped enough, thank you!” Strange finally lost his patience. Freeing himself from the enemy’s magical binds would have been more helpful, but that was much harder. At least with Wanda otherwise distracted.

“Miss Maximoff, whether those are really your children or not…they’ll have no chance of an actual life, a real life with you, if you don’t help us perform that spell! If you do, they’ll have at least some chance!”

“A miniscule chance…” the enemy insisted.

“Leave here with me and them, and your odds are far higher. You can have your sons, only your sons, and never have to hurt or be hurt by anyone else again. Or you can recite that spell and have nothing, all over again. Reality or a world with your last remaining family…you cannot have both.”

“You know what the right choice is,” Dr. Strange pressed. “It shouldn’t have to be your choice, but it is.”

“No it isn’t!”

***************************************

Peter had had enough. He didn’t lose his patience entirely with Agatha, but he lost it in front of a monster who had him bound in the air while the multiverse was falling apart. Go figure.

But it wasn’t about him. It was about her.

“You don’t have to make that choice again, Wanda! You’ve done it enough! There’s another way this time! Trust me!”

Peter didn’t know if the demon could read his mind too. He seemed to be more on Wanda’s level of powers, so maybe he could. Maybe it wasn’t worth taking the risk.

So in case the enemy could hear his mind, he didn’t try sending his thoughts out for Wanda to hear too. He didn’t want anyone but her to hear, sense or guess what he was thinking of – pleading for – right now.

He only hoped he was open and clear enough with his eyes for Wanda to get the message. But not clear enough that he would too.

Peter tried his very best to communicate to Wanda with only his eyes. Communicate what he hoped to God she could understand.

Understand that she didn’t have to do it again. Choose between her love and a world that would continue to hate her and never forgive her anyway. Put even more trauma on herself that would convince her she didn’t deserve love, or a forgiving world.

It had happened once, twice, several times too many. To her and so many more like her. And him.

But Peter pleaded with his eyes for Wanda to see she didn’t have to accept it this time. She could do something else. Do things differently because this was different. And it could end different too.

If she didn’t choose between saving her children or the world. If she realized there was a third option.

Free Peter and let him save the kids _while_ she saved reality. Let him do that while Wanda and Strange completed the spell. Let him do that much even without magic.

He could do it. He could do it for her and for them. He could do it…the way he didn’t do it at Titan. The way he, Strange, Mr. Stark, the cool aliens and the people at Wakanda didn’t before.

They didn’t stop Thanos and keep Wanda from making her horrible choice – and all her worse choices afterwards – in the first place. But Peter pleaded with his eyes to Wanda that he could do it now. He could do better this time, so that she could do better this time.

She had every reason not to trust that he could. Everything about the last several years told her that such a…new outcome wasn’t possible for her. Wasn’t possible for every hero that either had to die or give up who they loved. Every hero who could either be a hero or keep people they loved – never both.

Wanda had never been allowed to have both. No one had ever truly created a scenario where she could. Few ever cared to. But Peter did now. So would Strange now, maybe.

Peter pleaded, with his eyes and not the voice in his head, that Wanda could see it like he did. Could finally let herself see that she could have such a world. That she could be a hero without losing people or suffering one more traumatic fate. Believe that she could just one last time. Trust it.

Trust him.

Trust in one Peter to finally get it right. If not for himself or another Peter, then another hero.

A true hero. If she could only get a real chance, for once, to be one.

Peter pleaded silently to give him – give herself – that chance to help make it happen. Pleaded harder for that than anything since…the last seconds when he saw Mr. Stark alive.

The last seconds he saw Ben alive, maybe.

Peter pleaded quietly – in as much of a loud quiet as he could – that this time, this one time…it could finally turn out a different way for someone.

This was what his begging got him. And Wanda. And every universe.

******************************************

“You’re wrong. This will always be my choice.”

Wanda turned her back from all the adults floating in the air not by choice. She didn’t quite face the monster who had her kids floating without their consent either.

None of them could see clearly what she was doing, thinking or deciding.

“I’m sorry.”

None of them could see who she meant that for. Or what it meant she decided.

“I can’t save you.”

Another beat went by…until the ones she said it for finally realized she was facing them.

Billy and Tommy realized it a split second before their captor did. By the time he did, Wanda blindsided him once more.

“But he can.”

*****************************************

One revelation then crashed on top of another, before anyone could catch up.

Just when it registered that Wanda wasn’t choosing to save the kids, she blasted a red beam at one of the other captives.

Just when it registered that she wasn’t aiming at Agatha, but at one of her allies, it washed over that she was sending that beam not to blast her target, but to free him.

Just when that registered, it washed over that she wasn’t aiming at Strange, but at Peter.

And by the time it fully dawned on Peter that she wasn’t blasting him, but freeing him, he was already falling halfway down to the ground – until Wanda’s magic caught him in mid-air again.

Just as that registered, Wanda’s magic was flinging him forward – towards the monster and the children.

Just as Peter realized what that meant, he only had a split second to feel joy at Wanda’s decision. Before he got right down to the business of proving it right. Proving her, and him, right.

By the time Wanda had him collide with the enemy, Peter had already blinded him with his webs. It broke his concentration enough for him to lose his magical grip on the children. But Peter stayed focused when Wanda released him from her magic in return.

Focused enough to grab both Billy and Tommy as they all fell down, and to make sure they had the least bumpy landing possible on the ground. At the least, it was a landing they all survived with their newfound freedom.

“Whoh…that was AMAZING!” Tommy – at least Peter thought it was Tommy – cheered. Whoever he was, Peter liked him already.

“Go!” his mother called out to make them focus again. Focus enough to get as far away from her, and the battle, as possible.

*********************************************

Wanda knew there was no place they could go that was completely safe. From the enemy, his forces or the collapse of reality.

As long as it wasn’t here…wasn’t anywhere close enough to test her newfound resolve…it would be okay. It had to be.

It had already been more okay than it ever had been at this point in battle before.

Putting aside her still considerable skepticism that it could last, Wanda returned to the larger problem at hand. Starting by freeing Strange, and waiting a second – just an extra second, or maybe two or three – to free Agatha too.

“You can still start the spell while I get the children clear,” Strange offered.

“No. We both need to start now,” Wanda told him and herself. “He’s got it covered…I trust him. Do you trust me?”

Since they met, Wanda never thought Strange was capable of answering yes to that question. Until this moment.

“Ask me again when we’re in just one universe,” he settled on, which was still close enough.

“Deal!”

*********************************************

Everything was a blur after that.

Visually, all Wanda could see – all she could let herself see – was a sky and a barrier of reality she had to repair. Vocally, she heard the voice of every Kamar-Taj sorcerer around the world, reciting the spell with her.

For good long stretches, Strange wasn’t among those sorcerers, as the enemy seemed to draw him away into battle at various points. But Wanda stayed right where she was, as the best thing she could do for him – for everyone – was stay and keep casting the spell with every other magical master.

Even so, she kept hearing Strange being taunted by the enemy. Hearing him undergo his own personal crossroads, whatever those may be. Even so, Wanda didn’t stop reciting.

She heard her children’s voices. Heard Peter’s voice. Heard the excitement of all three of them – especially Peter’s when she saw what the kids could do – whenever they got past the enemy’s minions. Even so, Wanda resisted the urge to go over and protect them – or hug them. All of them.

She protected them by continuing to do what she was doing. Even when she could hear Strange giving Agatha more of her magic back, so she could get her own save the day moment. An issue for another time.

Wanda could hear it all, but she still blocked it out enough to do anything about it. Even when Strange seemed to be on the ropes.

Even when the Darkhold slipped from his possession.

Even when its voices called out for Wanda one more time. Called her to come to them. To do anything with their magic but what she was doing now. After all, it couldn’t get her her family, Vision, or a world that didn’t hate her for her crimes. Only they could.

But Wanda had long stopped trusting them.

The ones she did trust were the ones actually saving her children. Even seeming to bond with them in the heat of battle. Helping them hold the enemy’s minions back.

And finally, overcoming their own demons to defeat the demon in front of them.

And then, when Wanda finally heard Strange’s voice reciting the spell with her and the other voices again…all voices and sights faded from Wanda’s mind.

All voices gone but her own, calling out the last verses of her spell. All sights gone but the one of the sky closing back up, changing color back to blue and rebuilding the barriers of the multiverse again.

All gone until they were only in one universe again.

All gone until the field around them was just a field below a bright, blue, fully intact sky again.

All gone until there were only five beings left occupying it.

There hadn’t been six for a while now. After Agatha got back enough of her magic, and after it was clear the day was won, she took off long before anyone could tell her “I told you so.” She was gone, was magical again and wouldn’t be going back to Westview ever again – an issue for later.

Wanda couldn’t see to that right now. Especially not when she was seeing her children – really seeing them – for the first time since she turned out the lights in their bedroom for the last time.

She’d been told these were really her sons, in new identical bodies plucked from the multiverse, belonging to boys who had no one to miss them. Even if they were capable of missing them a fraction as much as she had.

But could she really believe it? Believe she could really have...had actually gotten…

“Boys…do you know who I am?” she barely got out, as she sunk to her knees in front of them.

“Yeah…you’re our mom,” Billy told her. “We chose you.”

Wanda didn’t know if she was saying anything in between her sobs as she hugged them. Anything in any actual language, anyway. She thought she briefly said words close to “I’m sorry” “I love you” and “I’ll never leave you again…” at a few points.

The boys were much clear when they spoke after hugging her. Mainly about how Peter held off and webbed up all the monsters after them. Hyped him up as much as Peter had hyped her up just hours ago.

And now here they were. Here they all were because of…

Wanda could barely see Peter through her tears, as he seemed to be bashful at the twins’ praise while offering some of his own. Already looking like he was thick as thieves with them.

Thicker than any fake uncle had ever been with them.

Wanda tried to blink her tears out so she could see him clearly. Then maybe she could talk clearly. Say anything to him, as if anything could possibly be enough. As if…if…

Wait.

Now Wanda could see a little clearer. Enough to see a new portal open up behind Peter. Open up wide enough that a sling of magic was coming through – right at him.

She could see it. She couldn’t stop it before the sling wrapped around Peter and started dragging him away. She couldn’t stop it before she saw the enemy – not as defeated as Strange left him when he sent him back to his universe – tugging that string of energy to take Peter back to his home.

Then she couldn’t stop herself from letting out the loudest, most desperate plea she’d made in over five years.

_“PETER!!”_

************************************************

For all the emotion she showed in that one cry, it was all gone when she sprung to her feet a split second later. All gone as she wrapped her own magic around Peter and tried to pull him back to her universe.

Not a shred of fear, doubt, panic or a lack of control was in Wanda right now. There was nothing inside her but the need to get Peter back.

And it still didn’t look like it would be enough.

With his own last burst of raw strength, the enemy used his free hand to blast Strange back before he interfered. He then shot enough magic from it to wrap around Billy and Tommy again, capturing them while fighting his tug of war with Wanda over Peter.

“I’m taking him, or them! This time you _will_ choose!” the enemy demanded. “Let go of one for the other! Now!”

Wanda looked back at her boys, again struggling under magical restraints. She looked back at Peter, who appeared ready to pass out from the strain.

Just like it appeared there really was no getting out of it. An impossible choice would have to be made, so Wanda would leave battle with one more unbearable trauma after all. It truly could not end any other way for her.

Yet as she looked back and forth at the two choices, at the enemy, and at the rapidly closing portal he was in…it soon became the simplest impossible choice Wanda had ever made.

“I’m sorry.”

And she let Peter go.

**************************************************

The monster reached out and claimed Peter the second Wanda let her go, dragging him by hand into his realm as the portal closed behind them. Trapping him and blocking him from the one that betrayed him forever.

It would have to do as a consolation prize. At least it was sure to be a delicious one.

“You are filled with nightmares,” he addressed the nearly passed out spider-boy as he laid him on the ground. “Feeding off all of them should make tonight far more bearable…”

Yet instead of pleading for his life with what little energy he had left…the boy now looked like he was…smiling.

“What are you…” The creature couldn’t finish. He couldn’t move his mouth enough to. He suddenly couldn’t move anything.

Or feel anything but a tingle in his own mind.

A tingle of magic seeping into his brain. Coming out of the woman now standing behind him.

A woman who was the last thing both Peter and the creature saw before they lost consciousness.

But only one did so with a smile.

******************************************

As Wanda had hoped, letting go of Peter distracted the demon long enough for her to step into his world before the portal closed. And focusing on Peter kept him distracted, until it was too late to keep her out of his mind.

Now here they were, in the blank void of this nightmare demon’s mind. A demon who still had no idea what was about to come for him.

“What is this?” the demon echoed. “You think you can beat me with some nightmare?”

“I don’t want one nightmare.”

The Wanda standing next to the demon, and the one inside the demon’s mind, both glowed with a terrifying purpose as they unleashed what they came here for.

“I want them _all_.”

Wanda had never used her original power when she was the Scarlet Witch. Since her time with Ultron, the only time she ever felt anything but guilt and horror in using it was when she did it on Agatha – and that hardly ended well.

It was a far different story this time.

Her regular powers of mind manipulation and nightmare creation, combined with the powers of the Scarlet Witch, would surely unleash an untold plague on anyone’s mind. Even a demon of nightmares.

Which was exactly what Wanda was counting on.

As she found every single nightmare, every horrible creation, every vision and traumatic fear the creature had ever unleashed on another soul – and set them loose in an endless loop of terror inside the creature’s mind – her faith was more than rewarded.

She would lock the enemy inside an unending nightmare of his own mind, never to wake up. She would leave him seeing nothing but the horrors he created for others again. Every evil creation and monster born of his own imagination would never leave it – never leave him – for the rest of an existence that would end long, long after he first wished it was over.

He only had a few seconds to realize that before his horrible screams rang out throughout the multiverse. Echoed through a world he would never see through the visions again.

And despite all his screaming and writhing, the woman next to him didn’t move a muscle.

“Like I said…amateur.”

***************************************

By then, Strange had opened the portal back up, not caring what Darkhold magic he was using to reopen the multiverse again. Not caring how much he had demonized someone else for doing the same just days ago.

All that mattered was saving the one who had done it first. And the one whose…supposedly naïve faith in her had been rewarded until now.

But by the time it had opened, Strange and the children beside him could see they were no longer needed. Not to defeat the enemy, anyway.

An enemy now rocking in agony on the ground, beside the woman who trapped him in a mindscape of horrors forever.

The woman who was now picking up the other person on the ground next to her – someone unconscious but seemingly far healthier. For now.

The woman then flew towards the open portal, not even acknowledging Strange, the children or the fact the portal was open to begin with. Once she got through, she merely turned right back to the portal, and began casting the spell to close it up again. While adding a few extra verses to ensure it would never be opened again.

She didn’t pause, flinch, or even notice any world around her. She performed her incantation with a precision no one and nothing but a dark book had ever seen before. She performed with a power previously believed to bring about the end of all things.

Instead, it was being used to close the last loose thread on reality, for good.

When it was over, Strange froze as he saw the Scarlet Witch, in a full might that had always been fortold as a sign of doom. A signal that all would tremble before a power that would destroy them, no matter how they reacted to it.

And then in a matter of moments, that might crumbled away.

Before his eyes, Strange saw the Scarlet Witch fade completely. Leaving something else…someone else, in its wake. Someone bending down in front of the unconscious boy below her. Someone who looked more and more fragile with every passing second the boy wouldn’t wake up.

Someone whispering increasingly audible, increasingly desperate pleas for the boy to wake up. Whispering increasingly shakier apologies, as her body started to shake as much as her voice was.

Strange should have been that focused on the boy too. Should have used all his medical and magical expertise to heal him right then and there. But once again, as he did five years ago, he made no move to spare the kid.

Not out of necessity this time. Not out of not caring if the kid lived or died.

He was just more fixated on someone else whose fate he cared nothing about five years ago.

Someone whose fate was sealed by Strange not caring about it then. Not when he gave over the weapon that killed her love forever, just so trillions could only die for five years.

Whether that played a part in how he saw her weeks or days ago…was a different matter. The end result was the same.

He only saw her as the dangerous, long feared Scarlet Witch and treated her as such. Especially when she committed the very destructive actions she was always meant to do. Even when she stopped, it changed nothing for him and he didn’t see any logical reason why it should.

No matter what childish arguments there were to the contrary.

But today…these last several days, if he were to be fully honest. Yet especially today…especially here and now…

He didn’t see the Scarlet Witch. He finally saw _Wanda_.

Especially when her pleas were finally answered.

When the boy woke up and made some quip Strange couldn’t make out through his own thoughts – his own relief.

Or Wanda’s sobs.

As Wanda both laughed and cried, and as her boys – real or otherwise – rushed to Peter’s side and then their mother’s, Strange fully took in what he was seeing now. What perhaps no fully human person ever had before.

He was seeing Wanda Maximoff crying after a battle, yes. Not an uncommon outcome. But for the first time, she was crying tears of joy.

Joy as her sons embraced her again. Joy as she laughed in spite of herself when Peter tried to sit up and hug her too, but couldn’t. Joy expressing itself in tears that weren’t born of town, universe or reality shattering pain.

This was the Wanda Maximoff that could have been so much earlier, if so many things had been different. Like they had been in far too few timelines. Especially in this one.

Yet in this one, at long last…she didn’t have to make a choice that buried her in more loss. More suffering or sacrifice. More collateral damage she would then inflict upon innocent people.

In this one, for the first time ever…she got to be a hero without having to give up anything for the world. And when that happened, they won. She won.

Because a boy, against all mountains of evidence to the contrary, trusted her. Because someone else…who didn’t for far longer…finally did. And now here she was, surrounded by love – in many forms – that she might be allowed to keep for longer than a blip in time.

A love, that through necessity, Strange had helped take away from her once before. And it had brought them right to this moment because of it. Seeing it end like this should have made him feel more justified. But it didn’t.

When he finally saw Wanda – the Wanda that should have been far more often before this – he felt more…protective. Determined that he would never play a part in taking such happiness – such rare happiness – from her again.

As it happened, he began to see a way in which he could do just that.

“That was…” he managed to hear Peter try to say as he got more of his strength back. But Strange finished it for him so he could focus his energy elsewhere.

Finished it with the only word that made sense, as he looked again at the woman – the still smiling, actually relieved of her burden woman – who inspired it.

“Amazing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW, the villain is left nameless on purpose - you can fill it in yourself as Mephisto, or Nightmare, or some other Marvel supernatural creature. But that's not the important thing about this story.


End file.
